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Wednesday, 24 August 2016

ALBUM REVIEW: Inter Arma - "Paradise Gallows"

By: Charlie Butler

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 08/07/2016

Label: Relapse Records

“Paradise Gallows” is a monstrous monument to Inter Arma’s
colossal ambition that captivates for every second of its mammoth 70 minute
duration. Few other bands blur the boundaries between genres as effortlessly
while still delivering songs of this quality.

There have
been some epic records released so far in 2016 but nothing as mind-bogglingly
huge as Inter
Arma’s “Paradise Gallows”. The Virginia quintet’s new LP is a vast voyage
on a galactic scale across the spectrum of heavy music.

“Nomini”
opens the record in subdued fashion. Soaring lead guitar lines ride above
spacious acoustic guitar to create a haunting nocturnal atmosphere reminiscent
of Pallbearer’s
“Sorrow & Extinction”. The track
fades out only to return later in “Potomac”, the album’s centrepiece. Organ and piano
join the fray to elevate the song into a grandiose slab of raw classic rock.

Elsewhere on
“Paradise Gallows”, Inter Arma
take their music to entirely different places. There are abrupt shifts in sound
and style from track to track that sometimes make you wonder if you are
listening to an entirely different band. Sudden changes like this can be
jarring and result in an uneven listening experience, but they only enhance “Paradise Gallows”. Every track on this
record feels meticulously crafted and sequenced to be the logical next step in
this bizarre journey into the unknown.

The relative
calm of “Nomini” is destroyed by the
onslaught of “An Archer in the Emptiness”
and “Transfiguration”. Both tracks
are epic fusions of lumbering sludge riffs, death metal intensity and insane
drumming forged in a cauldron of cavernous reverb. Imagine listening to Mastodon’s
“Remission” in an echo chamber with
all elements apart from the drums slowed down to half-speed and you won’t be
disappointed. The band hone this progressive approach to perfection for “Violent Constellations”, ramping up the
complexity even higher with restless, spidery guitar work.

“Primordial Wound” and “The Summer Drones” see the band focus
on relentless repetition of minimal one chord riffs. The hypnotic pull of these
riffs increases with each iteration, weighty slabs of doom that draw the
listener ever deeper into psychedelic oblivion.

Not content
with having covered these bases, Inter Arma contribute a couple of contrasting
ballads. The massive title track is a rumbling, Neurosis-style dirge split
between passages of hushed, dustbowl soundscapes and explosions of crushing,
spaced-out doom.“Where the Earth Meets the Sky” is a different proposition, a sparse
acoustic close to the record that provides a suitably powerful yet understated
conclusion.

“Paradise Gallows” is a monstrous monument to Inter Arma’s
colossal ambition that captivates for every second of its mammoth 70 minute
duration. Few other bands blur the boundaries between genres as effortlessly
while still delivering songs of this quality.

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